Embracing Our Inner Cool

“And into the night of his own room, where he found his supper waiting for him,” I read. “And it was still hot.”

I kiss our wild thing good night and come into the living room to find Aaron, on Day 1 of his new morning yoga routine, sprawled on the couch. “Welcome home, I made borscht and cucumber salad,” I tell him. “Mmm,” he says, falling into a deep sleep. I know how he feels. I started jogging again a few weeks ago, and for a while there I didn’t make it past 7:30 pm without a good snooze on the couch.

In the early evening light I pour myself a cold glass of wine and spread some Triscuits with farmer cheese (lovely with a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire, a pairing fit for a…mom sitting alone in the kitchen with her laptop I guess).

It took being home this summer, when most people seem to be away, and when Aaron has Fridays off, for us to start exercising again. I’ve been finishing my M.A. the past, oh, five summers, and I’m particularly grateful for this slower, damper, more languid time. Aaron and I get to see each other on Fridays while Leo is in school (the curriculum, during the warmer months, seems to mostly involve sprinklers and ices). I’ve got Leo home with me now on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we’re doing the free learn-to-swim class at our neighborhood pool. I’m planning to start teaching little cooking classes for our playgroup on Tuesdays too. And then on Monday and Wednesday I have time in the house while the guys are out. It’s all I could want from summer.

As for meals, it’s been mostly salads for us, cucumbers and cheese for Leo, the occasional turkey cutlet or burger… If not for our CSA I don’t think I’d be cooking at all. As it is, I plan meals like tonight’s cold soup and salad to eat with Aaron once the day cools off. Leo seems to be in a regressive food phase, preferring plain, separate foods to anything with more than one ingredient anyway, and since he mostly still eats a balanced diet, I’m not worrying about it currently. It’s summer, he can sit around eating bread and avocado as far as I’m concerned. And with a blender full of borsht in the fridge, Aaron and I can eat whenever he wakes up from his well-earned evening nap and comes into the night of his very own kitchen where he’ll find his supper waiting for him. It will still be cold.

Zoe Singer is a freelance food writer and cookbook editor and co-author of The Flexitarian Table. Food Editor and blogger for The Faster Times, she tries not to eat for two now that her son is a toddler.